Illinois coyote had blind Chihuahua's leg in its mouth

An Illinois man saved his blind 12-year-old Chihuahua from a coyote attack with a rolled up newspaper.

Dawn McCarty was getting the paper at her home in Antioch when she heard her dog Tucker yelping, the NBC affiliate in Chicago reported.

She rushed to the backyard to find Tucker's leg in the mouth of a coyote. Another was standing nearby.

"I took my newspaper and kind of held it out like a sword and I shooed it away -- I beat the coyote away," McCarthy told the Chicago Sun-Times. "They were big -- bigger than a German shepherd. They both took off when I started yelling and swinging the paper."

The attack on McCarty's pet is one of several reported in the Chicagoland area recently.